


An Arrival (or, an exploration into why Kelvin Andante has fire blood)

by geometea



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Slash, Sickfic, The Core (location), unbetad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29919654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geometea/pseuds/geometea
Summary: A visitor from the Hellmouth arrives in the Core fleeing the heat. Unfortunately, the heat seems to follow em wherever ey go.Thankfully the Core houses those willing to help where help is desired and willing to help this stranger find a place to call eir own.
Relationships: Kelvin Andante/Kelvin Drumsolo
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	An Arrival (or, an exploration into why Kelvin Andante has fire blood)

**Author's Note:**

> oh hello its me zed geometea have you heard of kelvin drumsolo and kelvin andante from the mechanics? oh you haven't well here you go have 2k words of unbeted kelvin^2 content aka the story of the arrival of kelvin andante aka theyre in love and i love them anyway please enjoy

Kelvin Andante had barely been in the core a week when things had started to go up in all the wrong ways. Ey hadn’t been planning to come in the first place - had been trying to shelter from the Hellmouth heat that seemed determined to melt em to nothing and had found emself going deeper and deeper and further down. It had seemed strange, that one could go so far down and not reach some sort of a bottom. Ey’d heard of the core. Of course ey had, the mechanics that made anything and nothing keep ticking along (though one could never quite be sure what was them since none of them seemed to be able to give a straight answer to anything) were a fairly common sight. Ey’d never learned the location of the core though. That was the one thing they all seemed to agree on. The core was, apparently, ‘down’ in a most ambiguous and unenlightening of ways. Kelvin had even met with one of the mechanics - a people mechanic by self designation. This, to em, had sounded like someone who would cut em open and stick in cogs and gears and all sorts of mechanical nonsense until ey worked just like ey were supposed to. Apparently, though, that’s just what therapists were called down in the core.

All this to say that eir knowledge of the core was better than nothing but certainly not as much as ey’d have wanted before winding up living there. For a start, things had gotten cooler as ey’d gone down and then pretty quickly begun heating up again (which sort of negated the point). Unfortunately by the time ey’d realized this it felt like all too much to crawl eir way back out of the earth and ey weren’t entirely sure what going uphill in this heat might do to em. So ey persisted, delving down.

The part of the core that ey reached was uninhabited as best ey could tell. Eir tunnel had suddenly given way underneath em, ey fell, ey landed on metal. When ey looked to see where ey had come from, there was nothing. Just a continuation of the rusted gears clunking away as they ground their way around. To be honest, it took a while of dodging around piping and gingerly picking eir way over areas where there was no floor to realize that this was very probably the Core. It was only after walking into a small, caged off area to find that cage being lashed by lightning that ey realized where ey probably were. What followed this was, if ey were to be honest, a panic attack. Ey’d heard that the Core was massive, labyrinthian and much of it was uninhabited and unless ey could find the Mechanics ey had no real clue how ey were going to get out. 

Ey’d sat and stared at the lightning for a while. It was mesmerising and rhythmic in a way that had felt soothing though not in a way that seemed like it was going to help with eir current fatalism. Ey were lost in an unfamiliar place about which the only thing ey know was that it was difficult for even its inhabitants to navigate. Either one of those inhabitants found em or ey were just going to enjoy the light show while ey could.

Not to briefly turn and address the fourth wall but at this moment a point of clarification is required. There is a rule within the core, though Kelvin wasn’t to know this, that (while the sentience of the core is very up for debate) one tends to arrive where one’s needed. So if this was mere coincidence or the result of ancient machinery or the mechanisms of some unknowable god that dwelled beyond the Mechanics knowledge, I cannot say. Nor will you ever receive a clear answer from anyone else who might know. And if you do? They are someone who does not know. The Core is down. What more needs to be said?

So it was that from the depths of despair, a voice rang out.

“Gah! Stupid closet! This is the sixteenth wrong location!”

Kelvin Andante would later claim that ey were sitting coming up with plans, and was up like a rocket as soon as ey heard the sound of another person. This is not quite accurate. It took 16.359 seconds for em to process what had just happened, get up and call out emself.

“Is anyone there? Help!”

Not the most imaginative of messages, perhaps, but it seemed to carry enough meaning that ey heard the sound of a multitude of legs (and what sounded like rhythmic drum playing??) scattering towards em. The figure who appeared in the doorway was, well, eyecatching to say the least. Zir hair appeared to be either on fire or actual fire, and ze was wearing a hard hat that seemed to have the top melted off. There were a few speckles of flame coming out of zir chin (as though ze was trying to grow a beard???) Ze was in a many legged mobility device which seemed to have two and a half drumkit held up around it in what looked like a complex mechanical automatic drum playing system. As ze scuttled to a stop, they banged out one final clash and with a gout of flame fell silent.

Kelvin realized, as steam filled the area, that in eir panic ey had covered pretty much everything in ice. Ey looked at this stranger awkwardly.

“Uh. Hi. I’m lost?”

Ze grinned. “Hi lost, I’m Kelvin! You new down here? Haha, this is a long way from anything. C’mon! I know it can be confusing but there’s a closet just – oh I guess you don’t know how the closets work. Some people say you can use them for transport or that there’s only one closet. Don’t know how true that is though! Most things here are true sometimes and not true other times but it seems to be true right now so we should probably go before it stops being true.”

Our protagonist Kelvin had sort of zoned in on the first thing ze said and blinked in confused agreement at the rest.

“Wait uh – how do you know my name?” ey asked.

“What, lost? Or something else?” The newcomer was already turning around to head back in the direction that they came and Kelvin followed, determined not to get abandoned out in the middle of nowhere.

“No, Kelvin. I’m Kelvin. Kelvin Andante.”

The stranger doubled over in laughter at this, wheezing out “wait you’re Kelvin??” as tears of mirth began to drip down zir face.

“Uhhhh yeah?”

“Oh that is too good. I’m Kelvin Drumsolo. Named as such because of, well, the drums. You play any instruments other Kelvin? Oh man this is amazing I can’t believe I met another Kelvin. Oh also, ze zir.”

Kelvin Andante mentally went through every time ey’d referred to this Kelvin and updated eir pronoun usage.

“Um, not really. Sorry. I’m OK at singing? Ey/em please.”

Drumsolo opened a door and gestured for em to enter. 

“Ah, that’s a shame! Anyway, just need to –“ ze pressed into the small space next to em and shut the door – “open this again and – “ the door opened to show a cheerful room, covered in bunting. There were lamps littered everywhere and an oil stained person with big round glasses who glanced up at them from where they were sitting drinking coffee from a thermos.

“Hey Bottles!” said the other Kelvin.

‘Bottles’ raised her thermos in a hello. “Hey, new person. Welcome down. Or re-welcome down. Hey Drumsolo, you seen Lady anywhere?”

“Haven’t seen anyone! Well apart from my new friend here – eir name is Kelvin too, Bottles. What are the odds?? Oh I am so excited to introduce you to everyone.”

This last part seemed like it was directed at Andante who nodded in quiet confusion.

“Wow. Yeah. Very low odds. Anyway.” Bottles raised their thermos in what seemed to rather clearly convey a goodbye. Kelvin took a moment away from eir other confusion to be confused at how she could convey hello and goodbye so clearly with thermos gestures.

“OK OK we’ll head off! I’ll tell Lady Matsuyama you were looking for her if I see her!” said Drumsolo with an easy laugh.

Ze led Andante out onto a well lit walkway and down a ramp. “We don’t really have rooms per se – people will tend to have their own area but broadly you can set up anywhere. Don’t think anyone’s using this bunk for now so you could grab some sleep! I’ll introduce you to everyone when you’re a bit more rested! Oh – “ at this point ze led them into a room with UV light coming down from the ceiling and plants growing up from the floor – “well this room is not what it was ten ticks ago. OK c’mon lets try over here.”

The next fifteen possibly minutes were spent opening random doors until they came upon an empty ish room with a hammock in it. 

“You OK with a hammock? They can be a bit… not sure who was in here last. We can find somewhere with a bed if you want?”

“No uh, that’s fine. I’d like to try to get some rest.”

Drumsolo gave em a smile. “Well, sleep well! I’ll see you in a little while! Oh you dim the lights here.” Ze gestured towards a panel on the wall. 

“Thanks?”

“No problem!” and with that, Kelvin Drumsolo was off. It took Andante a little while to realize that ey hadn’t asked about brushing eir teeth or nightclothes or anything but by this point ey were so exhausted that ey just struggled eir way into the hammock and fell asleep.

The rest of eir week passed in a similar way. Eir new friend led them to find the things ey’d need to populate eir? room and settle in. First point of order was absolutely getting a bed.

It was after about six days that ey started to feel… off.

It was the same sort of sickness that ey’d struggled with in Hellmouth, that had sort of settled into the background after a little while.

On the eighth day, ey couldn’t get out of bed. Kelvin Drumsolo came to visit and ey developed a fever.

When ey woke up on the ninth day, Bottles was there.

“Kelv worried that ze was making things worse. You’ve obviously got that whole cold thing going on. Look, we’re here to help. Do you need to be cold? We can try to get you out of here.”

Ey shook eir head, blinking blearily up at her. “I – I – where’s Kelvin?”

“Okay. Some of the others have been working on trying to cool it down in here so that might help.”

Ey faded out of consciousness soon after that. Kelvin was back at some point, ey thought, but ze had eir mother’s face and was looking at em with a disappointment that looked painfully out of place on zir face. There were other people, some sort of small lizard and someone without a face and…

There was something cold on eir forehead but the cold burned and ey didn’t know how to deal with that. Water was dripping on eir face and ey could see icicles dripping down from the ceiling and frost clinging to the floor and to em and it should have been home and safe but ey were still so hot.

Kelvin was there the next time ey woke up.

“I can help you. It’s – we fix things. Not people. We help people, if that’s what they want. We’ve been trying everything but you’re burning up inside and it doesn’t matter how much we cool you down outside. I have a plan, though. Something that could help you manage the heat, to overcome this. If you want me to.”

“I… Kelvin it hurts.” Ey reached out for zir and ze took eir hand.

“I can’t guarantee that this’ll work but if it does you could stay here. I’d – we’d like it if you stayed here. This past week has been something special and you just. You fit here. I think you could have a home here.”

“Just make it stop hurting, Kelvin, please!” ey begged.

“We’ll help you, I promise.”

Ey drifted back into unconsciousness, not feeling as Kelvin Drumsolo removed zir hand and moved to the door. Ze took a deep breath before opening it.

“We’re doing the transfusion.”

There was fire in eir veins when ey woke up but not of a sort that burned. Warmth had always been threatening but this felt settled. Cold hot. For the first time in… some time eir head was clear. Ey were in an unfamiliar room, on a bed. Kelvin Drumsolo was sitting asleep in zir chair next to em.

“Kelvin? Kelvin what happened?” 

Ze woke up with a start before catching sight of em and relaxing.

“Oh thank goodness you’re awake. That. That was terrifying. I haven’t been so scared in, what, a while???”

“How am I awake? I feel different.”

Drumsolo nodded. “Ok. Yep. About that. We did a blood transfusion. Yours for mine. I’m obviously hot as they come in just about every sense so if anything was going to help channel the heat it would be that. We aren’t sure if it’ll be permanent or not but we ran some tests and we were pretty sure it would work. So yeah! Welcome to the Core. We make strange choices.”

Ey held up eir hand and looked at the veins which ey could now see were running molten gold with the fire within them. Kelvin Drumsolo offered zir hand and ey could see where absolute cold was sitting ice-like within zir.

“Thank you. You didn’t – you didn’t have to do that for me.”

Kelvin smiled. “Yes, but I wanted to. Like I said, we’re here to help. Anyway you’ve literally got my blood in your veins so that means you have to stay (at least for a little while) oh maybe you could try picking up a musical instrument that would be awesome and –“

Kelvin Andante listened to zir talk and smiled a little, to emself. Staying sounded very good right now.

**Author's Note:**

> free kelvin andante from the shadows eir spouse misses em. pls kudos and comment idk??


End file.
